


To Sail the Sky

by pocketmouse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor, Amy and Rory get more than they bargained for when they help a ship in need of repairs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sail the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to such_heights for betaing this for me! Written for the sensation play square for kink_bingo.

It was hot. Swelteringly hot. The sweat was pouring off him in buckets, steam rising from the rocks in the corner of the room. His heart was racing and he felt like he was going to collapse, but there was no way out of the room. He sank back against the smooth wood wall of the cramped building, looking at the other people with him, waiting with him in the humid air. The air was practically liquid; he couldn't hold out much longer. He felt like he was going to die.

Then there was a shout, and the door was thrown open. The others hooted and hollered, stampeding out the door. Rory followed them, legs wobbly at the start but gaining strength quickly as he pushed, and then he was outside and it was only a short leap to jump headlong into the snowbank. The icy cold hit him with an almost physical shock and he shouted, adrenaline pumping hard. He let himself sink further into the snow, rolling around a little to feel it press everywhere against his skin. It was in his ears and stuck to his hair — even his eyebrows and eyelashes. He shook his head, but that only cleared a little of it.

There was laughter coming from close by and he looked up. "Oh my god, are you _filming this_?" he asked his wife. "And how did you get here, the saunas are gender-segregated."

Amy laughed and continued holding the camcorder up. "It's a fence, you moron, I climbed it. And you bet I'm filming this — you acting like an utter idiot, naked in the snow? Do I hear the words ‘blackmail material?' she said in a singsong voice.

"Oi, you!" He stumbled upright and launched himself at her, knocking them both into the snowbank again. Amy shrieked and laughed, slapping at his chest and smearing snow in his face. Rory retaliated by shoving handfuls of snow underneath her coat, aiming for the protected flesh of her stomach. Amy screamed and flailed some more, ticklish and jerking away from the cold. Then she grabbed his hands and pressed them back against his chest, leaning upwards to snog him. He leaned into it eagerly, seeking the soft warmth of her mouth.

There was a slight chuckle from behind him, and Rory realized that Amy wasn't holding the camera any more. Opening one suspicious eye, he peeked up and saw the Doctor, still fully dressed — unlike him, shit — and recording the two of them in the snowbank, a cheeky smile on his face. Rory leaned back a little, preparing to spring again.

"Don't even think about it, Pondicus. One, I'm livestreaming this to the TARDIS mainframe, and two, I haven't lost a snowball fight yet in my life."

Obediently, he sank back against Amy. The chill was starting to get to him as the adrenaline rush wore off. "I'm going to find that tape and bury it," he said instead. "You two are insane."

"I'd like to see you try."

Amy used Rory to push herself upright, then turned to offer him a hand up. "You're one to call us mental. I don't see either of us running into a snowbank without our clothing." She opened up the fur cloak the locals had loaned her, and Rory burrowed in next to her gratefully. Maybe he should find his clothes again…

"It was fun."

"Heathen," Amy murmured, pressed warm against him.

"Hey," he said halfheartedly. Amy stroked her hand against his ribs, and he shot her a look. She looked back, the picture of innocence.

"Tír and Wæbold are waiting for us in the hall," the Doctor said, finally tucking the camera away. "We can stop for your clothes on the way, Rory. Fetching as the two of you look, I think it'll get uncomfortable quickly if we have to do any more running about." The way his gaze lingered, though, suggested he knew what Amy was up to underneath the fur.

Rory flushed and turned Amy around, so they were pointed back towards the lodge. "Come on."

"Ooh, do I get to help you get dressed now?" Amy asked cheekily.

"Only if you're very very good, and promise not to get us all kicked out."

"I'll be good."

"Somehow I don't believe that," Rory muttered.

  


The hall was a massive wooden structure that seemed too large to be heated solely by the fireplaces at either end of the room, but the interior was surprisingly cozy. Rory was still glad for the borrowed clothes — fur and skin and other things he knew were practical, even as the 21st-century Earth part of him protested and thought vaguely about whales — as he sat down with Amy at the long bench table, the Doctor next to her. Their hosts were across from him, and the three of them were poring over an ancient—looking book.

"What's that?" Amy asked. "The manual?"

"Not quite." The Doctor replied, looking up. "But it does have instructions on how to access the lower parts of the ship."

Rory silently ate his soup and listened to the others talk. The Varr knew they were on a spaceship, the Doctor had explained, a multi—generation ship that would take nearly a millennium to reach its intended destination, but they had chosen to live on their ship as if it was a planet, in order to not forget the delicate balance between natural ecosystems, such as the rampant rise of technology and overpopulation that had made their original planet uninhabitable. It reminded him in some uncomfortable ways of his own life being a Roman, however, of living one life not knowing it was a lie, created for other purposes. Most of the Varr ignored the fact that they were technically on a ship — for them it was easy to forget, a year or two of service on the lower decks, and that was it. But Tír and Wæbold, the two senior engineers, spent most of their lives in the lower levels, and hearing them talk so easily about the technology onboard the generation ship was gradually setting Rory more and more at ease.

"We have the knowledge to maintain the equipment," Tír explained. "When our ancestors made the decision to return to a simpler lifestyle, they made sure the truth would still be passed on in history, in words so that even a child could aid in repairs. But that is all we can do. Maintain. Repair. Some of us study the systems, and understand a little of how they work, but not enough to prevent future breakdowns, or even to improve on the systems. That's why we rely on the good will of travellers such as yourselves to help us." Tír gave a self-recriminating shrug. Rory had heard him talking the previous day along similar lines; here where his people were more likely to hear him he was more circumspect in his words.

"I'd be happy to show you everything I can about your ship." The Doctor had that twinkle in his eyes that meant he was trying to suppress the kind of manic grin that scared people who didn't know him. Rory exchanged a look with Amy and had to hide his grin by eating more stew.

Wæbold leaned forward and flipped through a few pages in the book. "We've never even been down here before. Mostly we check the drive engines and the nav system. Environmentals are supposed to be entirely self-regulating. That's the whole point of creating an ecosystem onboard environment. But the weather patterns are getting increasingly chaotic. Seasons are lasting longer, becoming more extreme."

"Are you sure it's not just a long-term weather pattern? The system is sophisticated enough to generate the occasional natural disaster —" the Doctor suggested.

Wæbold shook his head. "The _year_ is getting longer. We now have a fourteen-month year. The change was gradual at first, but there's no doubting it now."

The Doctor frowned. "Well, everything else seems well-documented, the system changelogs are excessively detailed. We'll take a look, and if it is an error, we'll see what we can do to fix it." He gestured to the tome. "May I?" At Wæbold's nod, he picked it up and leaned back to read.

Rory thought that that would be the end of the conversation, but their two new friends were much less reserved than the rest of the Varr, more used to dealing with strangers, probably. They wanted to hear more about Rory and Amy's travels, their life being so different from the family ship. "So it's just the three of you?" Tír asked. "That's so small for a family unit, how can you stand it?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Rory saw the Doctor's hand still on the page. Slowly, he set down his spoon. "Well, I'm used to small families," he said. "My parents... don't live with each other any more," he said, unsure if they had the concept of divorce. "Small families are more common where we're from."

"I can't imagine life like that," Tír said. "Still, I suppose if you've always lived your life like that, it must be commonplace for you."

"Sometimes it still takes getting used to," Amy said. She tore her bread into smaller pieces. Rory moved his thigh so it was touching hers. She bumped her knee against his in return.

Tír had other questions, and soon both Amy and the Doctor had relaxed again. Rory watched them both, and mentally shook his head. He was overprotective, he knew it, even about things he could do nothing about. So he listened to Amy's story about Space Florida and forced himself to relax as well. These were good people, and one small moment shouldn't ruin a nice evening. Amy and the Doctor had already moved on.

The 'sun' rose late this far into winter, but Tír and Wæbold insisted their visitors get all the rest they could, and they were shown back to their room for the night. They could have gone back to the TARDIS, but the Doctor had already eagerly taken up the invitation to experience more of the Varr's hospitality, and had accepted the room in the same way he'd accepted the clothing and the activities of the day. Although Rory knew the real reason the Doctor had taken the biggest, ugliest fur coat he'd ever seen was because he was wearing his own clothes underneath, and when the Doctor tossed it off once they were alone in their room, he was gratified to find he was right.

Amy flopped back onto the fur-covered straw mattress. "I could get used to this," she said, stroking her arms against its softness.

"Could you get used to — what was it you ladies were doing all day, preparing skins?"

Amy made a face. "Ew, no. There was fishing, but I opted out. I hung out with him while you were getting your caveman on." She gestured at the Doctor.

"The cavemen didn't have saunas, Amy," the Doctor said mildly. "Which is a shame. Maybe next time I go then I'll introduce them to the concept." He shrugged out of his tweed jacket and hung it neatly on the wall, then removed his bowtie and braces and tucked those into the pockets.

Rory watched him avidly. Every time the Doctor shed his clothes was like watching him remove his armor. He didn't know if he thought that because he'd been too conflicted to watch that first time, or if it was just the truth. The Doctor was undressing very deliberately, putting each item away one at a time, quite different from their usual hurried manner. When he finished, he turned toward them and Rory realized they had both fallen completely silent. The Doctor gave them a quick grin and lay down next to Amy on the bed. That sent the two of them into motion, and Rory and Amy quickly stripped off their own clothes as well. The room was chill with only the ship's heating coming through the floor, but the fur trapped the warmth of the three of them easily.

The Doctor was already stroking a hand up Amy's leg by the time Rory collapsed back on the bed again. She let loose a sigh as the Doctor kissed the underside of her jaw, then pushed him away halfheartedly. "Are you kidding? We can't — all this fur, there's no way someone won't notice."

"Then we'll just have to be very, very neat, won't we?" the Doctor replied, and slid down the length of her body. Her eyes widened perceptibly as he hooked her legs over his shoulders.

Rory grinned and slid a hand around her shoulders, easing her back against him as smoothly as he could, trying to disturb the Doctor as little as possible. "We can always clean it later," he said, and nipped at her ear. "Didn't think something like that would stop you."

"Someone had to make the token protest," Amy said, already sounding breathless. "And neither of you two looked interested in the job."

He laughed. "And that's you, the very soul of politeness." She smacked him on the shoulder, then gasped and squeezed instead as the Doctor's questing mouth found a sensitive spot. Rory craned his neck to see. The broad plane of the Doctor's back was just visible around Amy's long, pale legs. His head was buried between her legs, licking and teasing by turns so that Amy's hips were jerking in short, sharp stutters up towards him, then back down to brush against Rory's cock. The Doctor seemed absolutely unhurried, his hands wrapped around her hips, fingertips smoothing faint patterns over her hipbones.

Rory reached around to fondle Amy's breasts, cupping them, tugging and pinching at her nipples until they were hard points and Amy moaned low in her throat. He rocked his hips up against hers. She was gorgeous like this, wild and distracted and totally caught up in pleasure. He kissed the back of her neck, then again, trailing his teeth along her vertebrae.

Amy shivered and gasped in his arms, reaching back with one hand to touch whatever part of him she could. With her other hand she grasped one of his and pulled it down, past the smooth plane of her stomach to her hips and the soft swell of her labia. Slowly he slid his fingers into her warmth, feeling her tremble around him.

The Doctor didn't stop his own ministrations as Rory began to tease Amy's clit. Instead, he let his tongue run over Rory's fingers, licking and sucking with the same eagerness and absolute filthiness. Rory held his breath, his cock hot against Amy's thigh, the friction just enough of an edge to keep him from losing control. Together, the two of them were more than she could take, and Amy came with an abbreviated shout, the Doctor continuing to work until Amy settled with a sigh. He looked up at last, his lips wet and a look of dazed triumph on his face.

"Oh my god," Amy managed. "Mmmmmmnh..." She was out of words. Rory reached up to kiss as much of her cheek as he could manage, and she turned to meet him. She swept her tongue inside his mouth, stroking him, hard and demanding.

When Rory pulled away again, he could see the Doctor, leaning back on his elbows, watching the two of them. Something in his eyes glittered, dark. "Come here," Rory said, his voice rough, and Rory was gratified to see the Doctor crawling up the bed, on hands and knees, leaning over the two of them to kiss Rory as well. He tasted of Amy, sweet and heavy, and Rory put a hand on the back of his neck and tugged. The Doctor only gave a moment of resistance before collapsing on his side, letting Rory take total control. Amy rolled over to the side and Rory shivered at the sudden change in heat. He tugged the Doctor closer still, and the other man moved easily on the smooth fur. The Doctor wrapped his hand around Rory's erection, pumping him with strong, practiced strokes. His hands were big, strong, and clever. He knew just how to apply pressure, to stoke his thumb over the head, run his fingertips along the sensitive underside. Rory came quickly, spilling into the Doctor's hand and pressing his own hands against the Doctor's chest, trying to keep his fingers from dragging furrows in the other man's chest. Through fuzzy vision he watched the Doctor lick his hand clean, sucking carefully on one finger at a time. Rory desperately wanted to be those fingers.

"It's a shame you're right about the mess, because I'd really love to ride you right now." Amy had found her voice again, low and lust-filled. She was looking at the Doctor with that possessive gleam in her eye. She slid a leg over the Doctor's midsection, sitting up to straddle him.

"I think it'd be a very quick ride," the Doctor admitted.

"That _would_ be a shame," Amy replied. She placed her hand on his shoulders so she could lean into his ear, and whispered, so Rory could barely hear her, "So I suggest you hold _very_ still." She slid off him again, shooting a wicked look at Rory. He took his cue, clapping his hands over the Doctor's shoulders right where Amy's had just been. And just as well, as the Doctor nearly shot up off the bed when Amy licked a long, clean stroke up the underside of his erection. The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his hands around Rory's wrists. Rory chuckled and dropped a kiss on his chin, awkwardly.

Amy blew a cool breath across the still-damp flesh, and Rory could feel the Doctor tighten his grip. Fortunately she didn't wait for the Doctor to grind the bones in Rory's wrists together before she moved in again, taking the head of his cock into her mouth. Her hair slipped forward in front of her face as she began to swallow more.

The Doctor was breathing slower now, in time with him, and there was a peculiar itching in the back of his eyes that he'd come to realize was the Doctor, trying to watch through his eyes. The Doctor got off on the emotional more than the physical, but the two of them together — Rory let him in.

It always felt a little weird, having someone else inside your skull, watching you watch them have sex. Not in a reverb-y sort of way, there was no echo, or bounce back along the line, it was a one-way connection, but it made him so much more aware of everything he thought, felt, saw. Of the _way_ he saw it. And all this considering a year ago he would've barely been comfortable letting the Doctor into their bed, let alone his brain.

Amy was taking her time, putting on a show for the both of them. Slowly she took most of the Doctor's length into her mouth, then pulled off again to wrap her hand around his cock instead, stroking him delicately, barely touching him at all. The Doctor shivered and gasped, leaning into her touch as much as he could. Amy smiled and pressed his hip down with one hand.

Rory could feel his cock getting stiff again looking at Amy. She was looking straight at him now as she stroked the Doctor, and he swallowed hard. She was doing this to turn Rory on as much as she was the Doctor, and she kept her eye squarely on Rory even as she swallowed the Doctor down to the root, her cheeks hollowing as she did so. Rory closed his eyes and yanked at the Doctor's hands, still in a vicelike grip around his wrists, and the Doctor came with a bellowing shout. He let go of Rory to yank him down by his own shoulders, pulling him into a messy, breathless kiss that was more jaw than mouth.

Rory opened his eyes mid-kiss to see Amy sitting back on her haunches, one finger still in her mouth, looking at the two of them with a proprietary look on her face. He kept kissing the Doctor — correcting his aim a little — just to see what she'd do. The Doctor buzzed a little in the back of his head, contented and unwilling to move. Physically, either — the Doctor was basically just mouthing whatever part of Rory he could reach. Rory pushed him back gently and the Doctor took a swipe at his fingers as they passed.

Rory flopped over so he was lying in the opposite direction as the Doctor. Amy was still watching him. "Hi," he said, tapping at her knee.

"Hello," she returned. "How's that for neatness?"

"Can't complain."

"Good." She kissed him.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted. "I think you'll find that neatness was _my_ idea."

"Then get over here and claim your prize," Amy said, not looking at the Doctor.

"I thought I just got my prize." Rory stifled a laugh at the Doctor's pleased tone. "Also, you're on my legs, Pond."

Amy rolled her eyes and sat back again. "Cheat." But she moved, turning to face the right way up on the bed — though it was hard to tell; most of the pillows had gone off the edge. Rory reached down to tug the blankets back up over all of them and grabbed one of the pillows while he was at it. The Doctor had one already, and Amy was using him as a pillow. For the moment, at least. She was a pretty mobile sleeper.

The Doctor cracked an eye open to look at Rory, combing Amy's hair with one hand absently. He could feel the Doctor receding from his mind, drowsiness passing over him as he did so. Rory smiled at him, tucking the blankets over all of them, warm and close. Amy found his hand and tangled her fingers in his, her foot kicking against one of his own. The Doctor dimmed the lights, and the last thing Rory remembered before he fell asleep entirely was the Doctor whispering 'thank you,' to him.

He wasn't sure what it was for, though. Seemed silly to thank him just for the blankets.

  


The next morning, Tír and Wæbold led the way to the access hatch to the interior of the ship. Set apart from the main cluster of buildings that made up the settlement, it was housed in a small hut similar to the sauna Rory had been in yesterday. The inside even looked fairly mundane, by Varr standards. The only thing that was really, obviously strange was the large area of the floor that was clear. A metal ring was set in its center, and when Tír pulled on it, a section of the floor rose up on an invisible hinge, revealing a ladder, which they climbed down one at a time.

Once they were on the lower levels of the ship, it was just like the interior of any other spaceship Rory had seen. Industrial and poorly lit, the air was warm and punctuated here and there by steam coming up through the grilled floor. They definitely didn't need the winter furs any more, and the borrowed clothes were abandoned near the entryway in favor of their own modern clothes, more appropriate for the humid, obviously processed air.

"Morgen, we've returned," Tír said, speaking into a wall-mounted comm panel.

 _"Successfully?"_ a voice returned.

"Yes. There are three of them — the Doctor and his two companions. I am taking them down to the Environmental processing level now."

 _"Send Wæbold,"_ Morgen replied. _"You need to report to me at once."_

"Understood." Tír signed off and turned to look at them. "I'll catch up to you as soon as our captain is done with me. There's not much to report, it shouldn't take me too long."

Wæbold nodded. "Comm me if you get lost."

Tír rolled his eyes. "That was _one_ time." He gave Wæbold a peck on the cheek, then turned down the hallway to the left, disappearing up a flight of stairs.

Wæbold shook his head. "Morgen is eager to have his term over with. But at least he does his job well enough. The previous captain let everybody know he wasn't happy being given term — he barely did any work at all, put as much as he could off on his second." He shrugged. "This way."

They descended further into the ship. Unlike the vertical ladders, this was steep staircases — not quite as steep as the ships ladders Rory had encountered a few times on Earth, but steeper than a normal flight of stairs in a building. Down two, three flights and they could begin to hear the deep thrum of engines, the walls vibrating slightly, as if they were alive.

"The main engines are here, centralized to the ship," Wæbold explained. "Exhaust waste ports down, and heating and vapor are filtered upwards to the habitation level. Auxiliary engines and navigational thrusters are to the rear of the ship." He gestured behind them and they continued downwards. Another few flights and the rumble faded away. The temperature cooled as well. Heating ventilation, Rory guessed.

This part of the ship was drier, as well. Wæbold guided them past the waste processing level, the databanks, and the storage levels. On the last one, they paused for a rest. They had been traveling for nearly two hours, and most of it down stairs. Rory immediately sank down, rubbing his calves gingerly.

"Don't you have any lifts in this place? Mechanical transport, I mean," he said, seeing Wæbold's confused look.

"We almost never go down this far into the ship," Wæbold reminded him. "It'd just be one more thing to repair. There's a riser in the engine section, for quicker access in that section, but it's only a few flights, so usually we don't bother."

"I'm not looking forward to climbing back up," Amy said. She too was stretching sore legs.

The Doctor grinned. "We'll take our time coming back up, for you slowpokes."

"Oi!" Amy stuck her tongue out at him. Wæbold laughed, and they continued onwards, keeping an easy pace.

The Doctor looked back and frowned. "How far away is the command deck?" he asked. "If that was just a simple briefing, Tír should have caught up to us by now."

Wæbold looked back as well. "The command deck is close to the habitation level, most of us don't like to live far from the rest of our people. The technology of the ship makes many uncomfortable." A strange look passed over his face, but then it cleared and they continued onward. "It must just be something more complicated. If he can't join us at all, he'll let me know."

The stairs levelled out into a simple hallway. "Most of this is sensor arrays, passive data-gathering for nav. Backups and backups for the backups. You can see why we still need the maps of the ship." Another ten minutes and they arrived at a sealed door. Wæbold puzzled for a minute, then murmured "right, right." He spun the combination wheel a few times — Rory was too far back to see — and at last the door opened with a godawful shriek. Exactly like a door that hadn't been opened in five hundred years. It stopped partway open, as far ajar as it wanted to be. "This is it," Wæbold started. "Just a —"

"Wæbold, may I speak with you for a moment?" It was Tír, looking ragged and a little out of breath.

Wæbold looked concerned. "What happened? Are you all right?" He touched his partner's face.

Tír shook his head. "No, I just need to speak with you for a moment." He shot a look at the Doctor. "Alone."

The Doctor raised a hand affably. "We'll just take a look at the computer systems. Plenty to occupy us." He smiled.

"Trouble in paradise?" Amy murmured as they squeezed one by one through the door.

"Mmm." Rory said. He wasn't much for speculating on other peoples' relationships. He had enough trouble trying to figure out his own.

"Oh, this is lovely!" The Doctor said, sounding genuinely excited. "Hel _lo_ , you," he crooned. Rory looked over to see him stroking the computer screen, a look of rapt adoration on his face. He looked as excited as he had last night, Rory thought. Maybe more so. He struggled to keep his face neutral.

"A fully intuitive, semi-AI processing system. It's learning — information both about the people living in the habitation deck, and about the stellar environment around them, the cosmic environment."

Amy wrinkled her nose. "It's watching them? That's creepy."

"No, the maintenance crew is also providing reports on the society — looks like mostly record—keeping for later purposes, but a few details are making it into the environmental protocols." The Doctor squinted at the screen and tapped a panel. "Ah — allergens, food sensitivities, larger social trends. Wouldn't do to kill off your whole society because it suddenly became incompatible with the food supply."

"How long have they been on this ship again?" Rory asked.

Before the Doctor could reply, there was a shout, then a resounding metallic clang as the door swung shut.

"Tír! Wæbold!" The Doctor shouted. They all rushed to the door, tugging on it, but it wouldn't budge. "Wæbold!" the Doctor shouted again, and stepped back to run the sonic screwdriver over the door. "It's computer-controlled," he said with a growl. "Simple combination lock..." he muttered. He waved Amy and Rory back from the door. "Don't bother. We're sealed in."

"Why?" asked Amy. "Was this a trap?"

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "If it is, it's not one Wæbold was aware of, or he wouldn't have tried to warn us." He turned to scan the computer. "There definitely is something weird about the environmental systems."

"So what is it? And are we stuck here now?" Rory asked, looking around.

"I have no idea," the Doctor replied. "A ship like this, there's got to be another way out — access hatch, loose panel, something."

"I'm not playing Die Hard, Doctor. We'd better find a proper door," Amy said. She started investigating the walls, knocking on panels and testing computer racks to see if they'd budge.

"We still need to figure out that's going on that got us locked in here," the Doctor reminded them. "Last I knew this was just a simple repair job. The Varr have a good reputation — you'd have to, after four hundred years of relying on Good Samaritans." He tapped at the computer again. "What's changed, what's changed..."

Rory looked around the cramped compartment. He looked at Amy, and she tilted her head at the Doctor and shrugged. "Well, there's only one computer station, so we're going to keep looking for a way out."

"Can't you pull up some schematics on that thing?" Rory asked, gesturing towards the computer.

"It would take a bit of doing," the Doctor explained. "This is a separate processor solely for creating the weather systems of the false environment. It's not tied into the maintenance systems that would have that data, except through a few tertiary channels."

"You just work on figuring out what's going on up there," Amy said. "Rory and I will find us a way out of here." She tugged him over to where she was looking at a bare part of the wall. "This looks like it used to be a hatch of some kind, but it's not budging. I can't tell if it's welded shut or just stuck." She pounded it with a closed fist, and the panel jumped clearly, letting Rory see the edges. A line of rust drifted to the floor.

"Is there something we can pry it with?" he asked, looking around.

A loose bolt on the floor kept the panel wedged open a few millimeters, enough for Rory to get the jagged end of a piece of conduit in there. With the combined weight of both him and Amy, they managed to, with a fair amount of swearing, force the panel from the wall.

Rory stepped back, panting and squeezing his fingers open and closed, trying to get them to relax again.

Amy peered into the tunnel the panel had revealed. It was big enough to crawl through comfortably, but that was really all that could be said for it. "I think I see some light," she said, already cautiously testing her weight against the bottom.

"Hey, what happened to not playing Die Hard?" Rory asked.

"It's like thirty feet, Rory," Amy said. "I can see the other side." She started to crawl. Rory followed. He nearly banged his head on the low ceiling. "Oi!" Amy said.

"Sorry!" he said. "Tunnel! Like you didn't know this was going to happen." Like it was _his_ fault there was nowhere else to look besides her bum. He fought down a grin.

Amy hopped down the other side of the tunnel and turned to glare at him, hand on hips.

He shrugged unapologetically. "Like you wouldn't do the same thing."

Amy thought for a half a second. "Okay, that's fair."

Together they looked around the room. It was dimly lit like the room they'd just left, blinking LEDs and bare emergency bulbs only giving light to the edges of objects, no detail and full of shadows. It didn't take them long to conclude there was nowhere else to go. Every wall was covered with the computer processors — heavy, unwieldy, and bolted to the floor.

"There's no way these are budging," Rory said at last.

"Is there anything in here we can use?" Amy asked. They found a half-empty toolkit on top of one of the processors, and another handful of bolts, but that was it. Reluctantly, they rejoined the Doctor.

"Well that took you long enough," the Doctor said, not looking up from the computer. His face was bathed in its pale glow. "I was beginning to think I'd have to go chasing after you."

Rory and Amy looked at each other and frowned. "What are you talking about, Doctor?" Amy asked. "We haven't even been ten minutes."

The Doctor looked up. "You left hours ago."

"Noooo," Amy said. "Ten minutes."

"Four hours."

"It takes you four hours to get worried about where we went?" Rory asked.

The Doctor dismissed him. Instead he strode over to them and grabbed Amy's wrist, peering at her watch. Then he did the same to Rory. He frowned, shook the watch — without removing it from Rory's wrist — then checked it again.

"Rory, your watch is twenty seven minutes behind Amy's. Which is three hours and fifty two minutes behind mine."

"I'm assuming that doesn't mean we all need new watch batteries," Rory said slowly.

"No it doesn't." The Doctor let Rory's wrist drop and moved to the still open panel, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He leaned as far into the tunnel as he could without actually leaving the room. Rory shot Amy a look, which she acknowledged grudgingly. Then the Doctor backed out again, looking at the sonic. "Hmm."

"Hmm?" Amy parroted. "What does ‘hmm' mean?"

"It means ‘hmm, time seems to be passing at a different rate in these two rooms."

"What?!" Amy and Rory chorused.

"How can it —" Rory started.

"It also means ‘I wonder if this is limited to these two rooms or the whole of the ship.'" The Doctor interrupted him. "Though the ‘how' is important too," he acknowledged.

"There's no way this is just a coincidence," Amy agreed. "But how is it related to us being locked up here?"

"Maybe they decided we weren't fixing things fast enough?" Rory guessed.

The Doctor sat back down in front of the computer, typing furiously. "More importantly, is it related to the fact that the seasons have been growing progressively longer in the habitation level for the past fifteen years?"

Rory moved to look at the screen over the Doctor's shoulder. "So Tír was right? But that's just programming. It's not just that time is passing slower there or something?" But no, the data the Doctor had pulled up clearly showed that the year was being lengthened by two or three days every year. "There's no way they built the program to do that," he said.

"But they did build it to be adaptable." The Doctor pointed out. "So what's it adapting to? It's got to be something external — spaceships aren't just created with different temporal pockets — well, most spaceships aren't — and this one definitely shouldn't be or it would have been in their lovely manual. Wish I had a copy of that again."

"We have to get out of here," Amy said.

"You're right," the Doctor said grimly. "I might not be able to access the entire ship's systems from this computer, but I'm sure I can get into the doorway protocols, or at least the ones for this room —" A few minutes of work, and something clicked deep inside the door, like a bolt being thrown. "Ha!" The Doctor flew from his chair. "Help me with the door."

The door was still just as recalcitrant as before, maybe more. It took all three of them together pushing to move it, slowly, slowly, open. Either Wæbold was stronger than he looked, Rory thought, or the Doctor hadn't been able to override all the security protocols. As soon as it was open wide enough for all of them to fit, they dashed through, and the door immediately slammed shut again.

The Doctor wiped a hand across his forehead. "Strong security for a room they never use," he said.

They raced down the hallway towards the stairs. "I'm beginning to regret that lack of a lift," the Doctor muttered as they began to climb.

"Way ahead of you," Rory puffed.

"We'll head for the engine levels," the Doctor panted. "It should have computer access, and we can at least take the lift there up a few levels. That'll save us some time."

"How do we know there's not another time pocket there?" Rory asked. "It took us hours to get this far in the first place."

"We don't have a choice. We won't know where the pockets are until we're someplace with access to the internal sensors."

They arrived at the bottom level of the section housing the engines after only about an hour of travel, none of them with breath enough to talk. They paused to catch their breath.

"It should've taken us longer to get this far up, shouldn't it?" Amy asked, looking up.

"Adrenaline counts for a lot," the Doctor replied, but he was frowning. "I got the impression there was only a handful of people, but we should have seen _someone_ else by now."

"Lunchtime?" Amy suggested.

"All at the same time?" Rory pointed out. Obviously there were more pockets. He hadn't noticed anything, though, moving through the different areas. That should've worried him, he realized. Would've, a few years ago. But he'd learned to prioritize in a different way since the Doctor had shown up.

They followed the thrum of the engines, looking for a door or some sign of activity. The engines got louder and louder.

"Does one of them sound ...off to you?" Rory asked. Sometimes there had been advantages to being plastic. He strained to hear.

They stopped, and the Doctor pressed his ear to the wall. "Yeee—es." He whipped out the sonic again. "One of them's going just a slight bit faster than the others." They started to jog.

"More pockets of sped-up time?" Amy asked.

The Doctor nodded. "We need to find them and stop them before they do serious damage to the ship."

At last they found a door, and the three of them burst into a small room set up similarly to the one with the environmental controls. This one was better lit and had a second door instead of an access hatch, but the computer was the same, and the Doctor made a beeline for it.

"Schematic, schematic — ah! Oh, of course." The Doctor smacked a hand down on the terminal in frustration. "Of _course_ they'd have their ship laid out in the most inaccessible way possible — the stairwells are on either side, but the only access points to the deck are at the center of the hallways, ensuring that no one can do anything quickly!" He shouted this last bit. "No lifesign registry systems either, so I have no idea where anyone on this ship is, either."

"Well, what're they going to do if they _do_ find us?" Rory pointed out. "Tír and Wæbold are the only ones who know who we are, but they're not exactly armed. And you said they've relied on others to help them for generations. Won't they just assume we're here to help?"

The Doctor grimaced, but didn't look away from the computer. "They might not necessarily assume that. After all, someone tried to lock us up. But you're right, they don't carry weapons." He sucked in a breath, going completely still.

"Doctor?" Amy asked. The Doctor didn't move. Amy stepped closer. "What is it?"

"It's not a temporal phenomenon," he said, still frozen over the screen. "It's simple physics."

"What is?"

"The changes in the rate time is flowing. It's not a timestorm or a miscalculation or an attack by the Marauders of the Third System. It's just physics. We're in the Night Barrage."

"And what's that when it's at home?" Rory asked.

"It's a field of micro-dwarf stars. The size of your little finger, and they put out less light, but they've got more gravitational pull than a solar system. The gravitational forces between them wreak havoc with the fabric of local spacetime."

"But, what, is it only affecting the time part of spacetime?" Rory asked, coming to lean over the Doctor's shoulder and look at the display. "Otherwise wouldn't the changes in gravity tear the ship apart?"

"You're right. Unfortunately, at this point in time — no, that's not really accurate — at this point in the field's life—cycle, the spatial forces nearly balance each other out. But that puts the temporal part of the equation in strong opposition. Time is passing at different rates in different parts of the field. We don't have to worry about the deck suddenly aging two thousand years an crumbling away beneath our feet, but if we get separated and end up in different timestreams, we can't communicate with each other. So watch out."

"Is that where the crew is?" Amy asked. "They're at a different rate? I think I saw this episode of Star Trek, you know."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "This isn't Star Trek, Amy. We need to get this ship out of this part of space."

"But how can we —" Rory was interrupted as the interior door opened with a crash. They all jumped back in surprise.

"Doctor!" It was Tír. He looked just as surprised to see them as they were to see him. Probably actually more so, Rory thought, since last Tír saw them they were being locked up.

"Tír!" the Doctor said. "We need to get to the nav controls."

Tír shook his head. "I don't understand, we locked you up in Evironmentals yesterday. How did you —"

"Not yesterday," the Doctor interrupted. "This morning. Though to you it might have been a whole day. Time is passing differently in different places on the ship. I don't have time to explain it to you, or to yell at you for locking us up, but trust me, we've got to get the ship out of this part of space or the effects will just get worse."

"It's already bad enough," Tír said soberly. "What you're saying explains a lot of things — Morgen called me up to the command deck to demand an explanation for why we were so late returning, and also where his replacement was. According to him, we were weeks overdue."

"Weeks overdue and no one came up to drag you back?" Rory asked.

"We're always a skeleton crew," Tír replied. "And he was more concerned about his lack of replacement. He was convinced we were plotting to make him stay here, and that you were in on it, Doctor. I'm sorry. Wæbold is still on deck arguing for your release. I had no desire to go along with it, but no choice either. The ship's command protocols are well designed to protect against mutiny, the reprisals for not following the Captain's orders are very strict."

"You're very lucky, Tír," the Doctor said. "Some people wouldn't take kindly to being locked up. And with the timestreams mucking around with your ship, you could've come back a day later and found it had been a whole month for those people." Tír paled. "And as it is, that's still a danger for everyone onboard. Help us fix this. We have to get the ship out of this area of space."

Tír shook his head. "Morgen's ordered the engines stopped until he gets his replacement."

Rrry frowned. "But we can still hear them."

They all paused to listen. Engines were still clearly audible through the walls.

Tír frowned. "No, they were shut off days ago." He looked at the Doctor. "Is this because of the different times on the ship?"

"No, it doesn't work like that," the Doctor replied, moving away from the computer. "Show me. If the engines are dead, we need to get them started again."

Tír showed them in to the engine room proper. They were on the bottom floor of the engineering section, so these were the lower access points to the engines. "There's four of us on every floor. Gell, Perrin, and Suver are here somewhere, but they're younger than me, so they'll listen to me if I tell them you're supposed to be here."

The displays on each of the four engines were indeed dead. The Doctor scanned them to be sure, but even without that there wasn't the steady vibration that Rory had expected to feel. "Definitely off," the Doctor said.

"Hang on," Amy said, rounding the corner of one of the massive metal causeways, "if the engines are off, what's powering the ship? I mean, I know it's not another Star Whale, but —"

"We have separate generators for internal power. The only thing these engines control is the motion of the ship."

The Doctor nodded. "More of that sectional design. Still not sure how I feel about that, by the way. Redundancies are one thing, but not bring able to access all the ships systems from any terminal, how is that useful? So if those are the internal generators, what else is on that we're hearing? What's draining power?"

"You can still access everything from the terminal, you just need a higher access level," Tír explained.

"Higher access level," the Doctor muttered as Tír worked on the computer. "That shouldn't matter. I'm the Doctor, I can access anything."

"It's a bioprint, keyed to the ship's crew records. You're not crew."

The Doctor made a displeased noise.

"Tír?" a voice called down. "Is that you? Where've you been?" Wæbold rounded the corner. "Ah, Morgen did send someone down, then — I went down to make sure myself, but it looks like you three had already been released." He smiled at Amy, Rory, and the Doctor.

The Doctor shook his head. "It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid —"

"I think I've found it," Tír interrupted. "It's the nav drive."

"The thrusters?" The Doctor turned to look, leaving Amy and Rory to explain things to Wæbold. "But those are just for attitude control, they can't possibly be on for this long."

Tír shook his head. "No, it's been running continually for over 30 hours."

"Ever since the main engines were shut off. There must be something out there — gravitational eddies, null points, something — that the piloting system is trying at all costs to avoid. The worst parts of the Night Barrage. We've got to get this ship turned around!" The Doctor turned to look at them. "Get upstairs and make Morgen see reason! If he's the only one that can override the lockout, get him down here. Those thrusters can't hold out forever, not with this much mass to fight. Tír, you can help me start up whatever we can down here. We'll work around the lockout as much as we can."

Tír nodded. "I'll call the others down. Some of the startup sequence can be done even if they don't know what it is. If we can't stop Morgen, I don't want to hold anyone else responsible for our actions." The Doctor nodded.

Wæbold looked at Rory and Amy. "Come with me. I have an idea, but I need your help."

They took the engineering lift, which, while slow, was still faster than running up five more flights of stairs. While it creaked upwards, Wæbold explained what he had in mind.

"Morgen won't budge until he gets his replacement. To his mind, that's months overdue. So we're going to give him a replacement."

"How?" Amy asked. "I thought it was computer-selected."

"The computer makes a suggestion based on the list it has of all the people of the Varr: their age, skills, and when they last served as crew. It makes a suggestion, but we can override that if we think someone else is more fit for the position. The main thing is that it has to be someone new. An override on the captaincy can't be performed for a member of the existing crew, in order to prevent mutiny."

"But if we can't use someone on the crew, how are we going to —" Wæbold looked at Rory. "Oh," he finished. "You want me to do it."

Wæbold nodded. "You've showed an interest in our culture, Rory. And we need to convince Morgen that there is no conspiracy against him, just an altered time current. If we introduce you, and say that effectively years have passed, then it will explain why he won't recognize you from the people he remembers." The lift doors opened and they started down the hall. "We'll get the clothing you borrowed, you can put that on again, that will help."

Rory frowned. "It all sounds like a bit of a stretch. What if he doesn't buy it?"

"Then we waste hours trying to get out of wherever Morgen locks us up for insurrection, and then we go find whoever is actually supposed to overtake him in command, months early."

"So we'll try this plan first, then," Rory agreed, swallowing.

Only two more levels up and they retrieved their borrowed clothes. Amy and Rory helped each other dress again, fumbling with the toggle catches and ties.

"Why couldn't they independently invent the zipper?" Amy muttered.

"Amy," Rory chided lightly. "We don't need the overlayers," he said. "It's not winter down here on the ship." He finished tying the lacing on her top, which fastened on the side, and she dropped her arm, smoothing down the leather with nervous fingers.

Amy nodded. "At least they've invented the shoehorn."

"Yes, well, you have to when you don't have mass-produced footwear."

Amy bopped him on the nose, and they joined up with Wæbold again, hurrying upwards into the new part of the ship.

"Morgen, I have returned —" Wæbold announced as they entered the command deck.

"Late. Can no one here follow a simple order?" The man who strode towards them was tall, with dark hair that curled just under his ears and a slight beard. He was a good five years older than Wæbold — probably mid-thirties, Rory guessed, but he was at least fifty pounds heavier. And all of it muscle. "You will remain here. No one else is to leave this deck. I will not tolerate any further disobedience —"

"Morgen, I have brought your replacement officer. And an explanation." He indicated Rory.

Morgen turned to stare at Rory, looking him up and down. Then he dismissed him, turning back to Wæbold. "I don't recognize him, he's not of the Varr. What are you hoping to achieve with this, Wæbold?"

Wæbold shook his head. "Morgen, when I left you I went straight to the engine decks. I found Tír, and he told me that for him, only an hour had passed, not the five it had been for us. The computers confirmed he wasn't lying. Something is happening to the ship, time is passing differently in different parts of it. Days here are weeks on the data processing levels, and months on the habitation levels." He pulled Rory forward by the arm. "This is Arvid. When you saw him last he was five years old."

Morgen's eyes narrowed. "Blyn and Offrid's child?"

"Yes. It's been years on the habitation level, but they haven't been able to get down to us — whatever is causing time to flow differently is damaging the whole ship. We have to move the ship away."

Morgen made a harsh noise. "What a pack of lies. The computer doesn't allow for mutiny, Wæbold, you forget that." He stepped forward quickly, brushing Rory aside and pinning Wæbold to the bulkhead, a hand around his throat. "You're going to have to come up with something more convincing than that." He reached for the knife at his belt.

Rory wasn't even aware that he moved. Afterwards he couldn't say what he'd been thinking. Or if he'd even _been_ thinking. He stepped forward, knocking Morgen's hand aside, and grabbed the knife. But he didn't throw it away, or turn the tables on Morgen, or even simply tuck it into his belt. Instead he held it up, the edge sharp, and set the edge to his skin.

The blade was sharp, good, probably used for hunting. For a second after he made the cut, it didn't even hurt. Then the blood welled up, fresh and red. It brought with it a stinging, bright pain that burned along the fleshy part of his thumb at the palm where he'd cut himself. The cut was a good two inches long, and the blood ran into his palm and down his arm. He resisted the automatic impulse to put pressure on the wound, bandage it. Faintly he was glad that the way he was holding it at least meant it was above his heart.

Amy made a grab for him but he stepped away. "You stupid idiot, what do you think you're doing?" she cried.

"He wants proof, doesn't he?" Rory looked Morgen in the eye. He'd let Wæbold go. "I hope you're a reasonable man," he said. Then he turned and walked out the door.

He walked down the corridor as quickly as he dared, not wanting to raise his heart rate. It wasn't a deep cut, he wasn't worried about bleeding out or anything, but nonetheless. He stopped when he was far enough down the corridor that he could be sure he was in a different timestream. He sagged against the wall, holding his wrist. "Ow ow _OW_ ," he managed through gritted teeth. "Christ, this better work. Otherwise I might've just sunk us." He held his breath, counted to ten slowly, then breathed out again. Then he picked himself up again and moved slowly back along the corridor. The cut throbbed, demanding his attention, but he had to keep focused.

The moment he came back into the command chamber, Amy shot up from where she'd been sitting and rushed over to him.

"How long have I been gone?" he asked.

"Just over three hours," Amy growled. She was _not_ pleased with him.

He held up his hand. "I've been gone maybe two minutes. Look, it's still fresh. Not clotted and broken open again. New." Morgen stepped closer to inspect the wound, and seemed satisfied. "You'd better wrap it up, then, before your wife does you a similar injury."

Amy stepped in before Rory could say anything else. She produced a clean cloth from somewhere and started bandaging his hand. "I can't believe you did that, you great moron," she said. "While you were off _bleeding_ , we managed to explain most of what's going on to Morgen over there. By _talking_. Did you think of trying _that_?" She gave a final tug on the bandage and then let go.

"Sorry, I didn't have any apples," Rory shrugged, and Amy started. "Do you really think he would've listened without some form of proof in the first place?"

Morgen saved him from what was probably going to be a godawful slap by stepping in again. "Arvid's right. And it's already been done, and he should bear only a small scar. We should move forward instead. What do we need to do next to get the ship out of the Night Barrage?"

Rory shot Amy a look. "All right, so we didn't tell him everything."

Wæbold spoke up again. "We've got to get the engines turned back on. The Doctor and Tír are working on it, but we need you to release the command block."

Morgen shook his head. "I can't."

"Morgen —"

"No, I mean I literally can't. I programmed the command block so it could only be programmed by the new captain." Morgen shrugged, looking only slightly remorseful. "My expected replacement is three months overdue for training, and, according to the computers in _here_ , now overdue to take command as well. The computer wouldn't accept my input even if I hadn't made that restriction." He turned from Wæbold to Rory. "Surely not what you expected for your first day." He steered Rory by the shoulders to the big scary-looking computer console that dominated one wall. "Let's just get you registered then."

"Um, I feel I should probably tell you —" Rory started, but Morgen rolled right over him.

"Arvid, yes? Just look into this part here, and follow the prompts on the screen. Don't worry, the scan doesn't hurt a bit."

"Scan?" Rory parroted, leaning forward into what looked like a stereoscope. There was a bright flash of light, then the screen resolved itself into a simple black screen, which read:

 **ACCEPT NEW CREWMEMBER: YES/NO**

 **NAME: ARVID**

 **POSITION: CAPTAIN**

There was nowhere to input anything, though. "Uh, y-yes?" Rory said hesitantly. He still didn't really feel comfortable talking to ships. He was never sure they were actually listening. That's what he got for working in a coma ward, he supposed.

The screen flashed again, and he winced, his eyes watering a little. **NEW CREWMEMBER ACCEPTED** , it read. **SERVICE TERM: ONE YEAR**. It flashed again, then retracted.

Rory stepped back. "Is that it?"

"No one's here who doesn't want to be, Arvid," Morgen said, clapping him on the back. "No need for ceremony, especially when there's work to do."

"Call me Rory," Rory said. "It's a ...nickname. Most people call me by it." Amy rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway, how do we restore control of the engines?"

"You just tell the computer."

"...what, really? That's it?"

Morgen nodded. "Voiceprint and retinal recognition. The computer knows enough about physiognomy to know if you're lying or under duress."

"As opposed to just high stress situations?" Rory asked, then immediately regretted it. "Never mind." He cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling, pretending he was just talking to the TARDIS, or over an intercom. "Computer, restore power to the engines and as soon as is safe for the ship, set course out of this system until the gravitational field is no longer affecting the ship." He looked at the others for encouragement. Wæbold nodded, but Amy was mouthing something. The Doctor. "Oh, and allow for any corrections or data input from the engineering section of the ship."

He looked around, but nothing changed. "How do we know if it worked?" he asked. "Are the comms still working?"

Morgen shook his head. "Incoming only. Tír was the first person I'd managed to get through to in weeks."

"Weeks?" Amy asked. "Don't tell me you haven't left the bridge in weeks. You've got to eat and sleep, don't you?"

"The Captain stays at the command deck at all times, just as the engineers stay with the engines their entire shift. But they can exchange shifts to rest. I can't. I have my quarters through there." He gestured at a small doorway near the front of the room that Rory had missed before.

"What about your second?" Amy asked.

Tír was prevented from replying as a wail of static burst from the speaker panel on the wall. It blared, tinny and painful, for a moment, then with a last squawk, cut out. _"Amy? Rory? Is that you?"_

Amy ran over to the wall panel, thumbing the speaker. "Hello, Doctor! What's happening down there?"

 _"The engines have started up again. We'd got the premix started, but we weren't able to get any farther, then suddenly it started working."_

"That's us then, yeah. Rory got a promotion."

 _"Ooh, did he now? That's lovely."_ Rory waited for the Doctor to say something teasing, but he didn't, he just continued on. _"Rory, see if you've got control of the main computer up there. I want to see how time's being affected in different areas of the ship. I'll be up in a jiff, but it should be long enough for you that you should be able to figure out the ship's systems."_

"Right," Rory said, then recognized the underhanded jibe. "Hey, wait —" But the Doctor had already signed off the comms. He sighed. "Okay. Morgen, can you show me the computer systems?"

"How long d'you think it'll take the Doctor to get up here?" Amy asked. "God, it's going to be hours, if you were gone two minutes and were only down the hall."

Wæbold was looking at the nav systems, obviously thinking the same thing. "It looks like on our previous course we were headed directly into the system. Now we're moving out, and at a much faster pace than before. The effects should already be lessening."

Looking at the full computer system, all the reports from various parts of the ship spread out around him, Rory could see that it was true, but there was still enough of a difference that it took the Doctor nearly six hours, their time, to arrive, out of breath, on the command deck.

"Hello there!" he said, beaming. "How are we all doing?" He clapped a hand on Amy's shoulder, she being nearest, then Wæbold.

Rory shrugged, wishing the Doctor would clap _him_ on the back. The ship kept calling him Captain, and it made him uncomfortable. _Imposter._ A small part of him kept missing the weight of his sword and cape, the swish of leather against his legs. That unnerved him almost as much as the rest of the situation put together. "We're on our way out of the area. Time differentials are already starting to normalize. They're not fading area by area, it's like the different rates are attached through different parts of space, so they're moving through the ship as the ship moves through the space."

The Doctor nodded. "That makes sense; the temporal fields were already there, the ship just wandered into them. " He clapped his hands together. "Good! We'll wait 'til the ship is fully out of this part of space, but everything should right itself, even the problems with the environment on the habitation level that you originally asked us to look at. Once we're sure that's the case, the three of us will be on our merry way." The Doctor grinned, but Amy made a face and shook her head. "Not merry? All right then, we'll be on our not-merry way."

"That's not actually better," Rory said, _sotto voce_.

"Wait, the two of you are with him?" Morgen asked. Rory's stomach twisted. "I was right, you're not of the Varr. Then who is supposed to be my replacement?"

"I'm sorry, Morgen," Wæbold said, stepping forward. "We needed to get the engines started again. The habitation level has been experiencing a normal rate of time, for them you're not due to be replaced for another four months."

"Three and a half, now, more like," the Doctor interrupted blithely. "Considering the time fields they'll pass through before we get out of this system."

"Well, that poses a bit of an issue," Morgen said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well obviously my actual replacement can't take command when Rory here — that's your real name, isn't it?" Rory nodded. "— is Captain. And ten months is a long time to be learning the ropes."

"Can't he just step down?" Amy asked, moving to grab Rory's hand. He squeezed it back.

"No," he said, remembering what Wæbold had said. "You can't step down from the role early."

"And someone on the crew can't take it over for you," Wæbold said. "I'm sorry, Rory. We were counting on the advanced rate of time taking care of it."

"It's all right," Rory said, his heart thudding loud in his chest. "A year's not so long to wait."

The Doctor looked up from where he was idly scanning the computer. "Rory —"

Rory shook his head. "No, Doctor, it's all right. Can't leave them without a captain, what if something like this happens again?"

"I know, I —"

"You are _not_ staying here a whole year by yourself," Amy insisted. "A year might be short for you, but you're not plastic any more. I'm not missing out on a whole year of your life." She kissed him, wrapping her arms around him, tighter than normal.

"Amy —" the Doctor tried, no longer looking like he was failing to look like he wasn't listening in.

"Shut it, Doctor, you can just jump forward a year, it's fine, but I'm not leaving Rory to his own devices, he thinks slicing his hand open to prove a point is a good idea." Rory smiled at her. This was why he loved her, even if she was insulting him.

" _Or_ I could sonic the computer," the Doctor said slowly. They both turned their heads to look at him. He tapped the display. "We've got the core computer open here, with full command power of the captain." He pointed at Rory with the screwdriver. "I'm going to have to realign the various parts of the ship's systems anyways, to get them all back in sync with each other — and I'm probably going to cointegrate them with each other, because half of this could have been sorted in the first hour, real—time, if I could have accessed all the ship's systems from one place, by-the-by — so I can sonic the computer back to the original date it should've been without the temporal eddies playing silly buggers with the clocks." He looked at Morgen. "You're going to have at least another two weeks as captain before your relief shows up, but I think that's a small price to pay for turning off the engines and nearly dooming everyone." Morgen nodded silently.

Amy relaxed her grip on Rory, who could feel his own heart rate slowing. He squeezed her hand, then winced in pain. "Um, as long as you're sonicing things, could you take a look at my hand, then?"

  


"OK, should've told me they had hot springs." Rory opened his eyes at Amy's voice.

"Exhaust vents," he said simply. "And these are supposed to be gender-segregated too." Not that he was objecting, as Amy slipped into the water next to him, naked. He tugged her into his lap.

"And I told _you_ , I climbed the fence." She draped her arms around him and kissed him. They kissed easily for the next few minutes, playful, hands sliding easily in the warm water, mouths pressed against flushed skin, chasing lower and lower. Rory picked a trail down Amy's neck to her collarbone, hands at the small of her back as she leaned up, grinding against him slightly now to allow him to suck at one nipple, tongue tracing slow circles around one aureole. Her hands clenched at his shoulders, and he moved his hands down to cup her arse. The hot water made every sensation stronger, accentuating the pressure of her body against him, making him aware of it in new and different ways.

"I think maybe we should go somewhere a little more private for the next part of this," Rory said at last, leaning back reluctantly.

Amy pouted. "Technically you're still captain of this ship. Can't you lock the doors or something?" She traced an erratic line down his chest, chasing water droplets. The cool air that followed made him suppress a shiver.

"Wooden fences," he reminded her. She slumped, sliding down to lean against him, chin on his shoulder.

"Not actually helping, Ames," he said, but didn't let her move. "Where's the Doctor?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He's somewhere trying to apologize to the TARDIS for taking off on her for two weeks."

"Oh no, we're not going to go anywhere he aims for for weeks, are we?" Rory moaned.

Amy laughed, and he could feel it everywhere she was pressed against him. "Nope. But hey, wherever we do end up, it'll be fun."

"Course it will." Amy would be there. Rory didn't say that out loud, but he could tell by the expression on Amy's face that she knew he was thinking it. She smiled at him, and kissed him again.

They dressed and made their way back to the TARDIS. The Doctor was peering into the gramophone, a cross expression on his face.

"You two made up yet?" Amy asked.

"Almost," the Doctor said, not looking away. His voice had a bit of a growl to it.

"Relax, Doctor," Amy said, pulling him away by the shoulders. She pushed him down into the chair, then plonked herself on the steps. Rory sat next to her. "You've got another week to convince her."

"That's not really helping matters," the Doctor pointed out. But the set of his shoulders relaxed some, and he sank back further in the chair.

"It's the fun kind of not helping, if that's any consolation," Rory said.

Amy made a face at him. "There's nothing to do up here, though. Morgen, Tír, and Wæbold are sorting the computer situation out, and that's the only interesting thing going on."

"There's ice fishing," Rory said, perking up. He'd forgotten about that.

Amy and the Doctor both made a face.

"Fine," he said, sitting back again. "I thought you liked exploring other cultures, Doctor."

"Not ice fishing. Ice fish monsters, yeah. That's more my style."

"Are those fish monsters that live in the ice, or ice monsters that look like fish?" Amy asked.

"Both, probably," the Doctor replied.

Rory realized that a part of him was actually impatient at the idea of having to wait another week before finding out if ice fish monsters were more fish or ice, and how they would try to kill them horribly.

Amy laughed and leaned against him a little. The Doctor beamed at both of them. "Well, ice fish monsters or no, there's got to be something here that can cheer the both of you up, even if we have to make our own fun."

The Doctor gave her a sly look as he stood. "And you're good at making your own fun, are you?"

Amy grinned back, letting the Doctor pull her to her feet. "The best."

Rory sighed, and had to fight back his own smile. He lost the battle as the Doctor freed one hand to pull him to his feet as well, long fingers sliding around his waist once he was upright, restless, eager. Amy winked at him. "Just remember we have to spend another week here. Let's not do anything that'll take us less than a week to regret." That sounded like the kind of goal they could manage. Maybe.


End file.
